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Public Service Announcement for Fans of the Big-Bottomed Bear

Devoted readers of BigBearButt who have despaired at his recent silence may still be subscribed to a defective version of his RSS feed. You can subscribe to a working version of his feed at http://thebigbearbutt.com/feed/.

Resource Highlight: The Daily Druid

Dan O’Halaran of WoWInsider renown has created a fabulous new resource that may just obsolete the Community Spotlight feature here at Resto4Life (though I enjoy these posts too much to admit as much)! The Daily Druid reviews the most topical Druid-related posts from all around the blogosphere. Best of all, these posts are categorized by spec, making it a snap to get the information that’s most relevant to you and your playstyle. Check him and subscribe out here!

Posts I Loved

Here are a few of my favorite reads since the last Community Spotlight post:

3.09 and You from Orbital Bombardment Wondering how the upcoming change to Ferocious Bite will affect you? Raine explores this (mostly) PvP-related nerf to burst DPS.

Best in Slot for Resto Druid from Sydera of World of Matticus Sydera shares her thoughts on the best items by slot from all currently available raid content. Warning: may become outdated with the upcoming nerf to Spirit.

The Best Raid Heal from Passport to Shandris Dave Ciskowski breaks down the total amount healed over time of all available raid heals. Includes some very cool step-graphs!

A Comparison of Two-Handers from Unbearably HoT Runy takes a look at the best DPS-oriented 2-handers available to Cats. Let it be known that I take no responsibility for the ridiculousness of her double entendres.

Doing It Kitty Style: The Basics from Of Teeth and Claws Everyone knows that CATIS4FITE. Karthis shows you how in this great DPS primer for cool cats and wanna-be dps-kittens.

Eclipse: Parts I, II, III, and IV from Gray Matter In a series larger than a boomkin’s bottom, you’ll learn more than you ever wanted to know about the Balance talent, Eclipse.

Flavors of Tanking – A Healer’s Guide from World of Snarkcraft A guest post from Joveta’s significant other and detailing the different “flavors” tanks come in: threat and mitigation. Personally, I prefer Karamel Sutra.

How to Level a Moonkin from Gray Matter A straightforward approach to maturing from plucky chick to a level 80 laser turkey of death.

Hybrid Envy from Of Teeth and Claws A great rebuttal to the assertion that Druids (and other classes capable of speccing for more than one role) should perform at less than 100% than their “pure” counterparts.

More on Wild Growth from Nerf This Druid Averna reviews the basic mechanics of Wild Growth, a spell that seems to confuse many Druids.

Representation of Mice from Out of Mana A fantastic explanation of the cascading effect class imbalance can have on class distribution in competitive Arena play.

Waxing Philosophical: Healer Squabbles from Tree Bark Jacket Keeva takes a look at the underlying reasons for the seemingly disproportionate animosity among healers on the official role forums.

Eggo on Wild Growth and Nourish

This week reader and avid Druid illustrator Eggo shares a comic related to the recent change to Nourish whereby it benefits from the HoT applied by Wild Growth. Here’s the first panel, but be sure to click to view the whole comic!

Blue: I <3 Graylo

A recent blue post in the official Druid class forum caught my eye a few moments ago. Eyonix writes:

<3 Graylo’s blogs

A big congratulations to Graylo! It is really exciting – for all of us – to think Blizzard might read some of the many fantastic class/spec-based blogs out there. This makes me feel a little guilty about all my crab-related posts. Well, sorta.

Paininabox’s WotLK Restoration Spreadsheet v1.31L

Paininabox has updated his WotLK Restoration Spreadsheet with a number of significant changes and bug fixes, among them:

Added gems

Added Innervate

New stat scale options

Added Tauren support (cows are HEAVY)

Beaming Earthsiege and Ember Skyflare Meta gem support

You can always find the most current link to download this spreadsheet in the Resources section.

It’s patch day! Here are some things to read while you wait for your download to complete.

New Tree Shirts: Stormcrow Wings and Adult Critter Form

There’s a new vinyl, vector design in the Tree Shirts shop featuring the wings of the Night Elf Stormcrow, depicted in purple and brown and embellished in metallic gold. These wings are positioned on the back of the shirts on which they’re shown.

By request, I’ve also added some adult options for the Critter Form shirts, including a maternity shirt. Note that most (though not all) of these are in pre-set colors because of design limitations.

Druid Pole Dancers Video

New Druid Blogs

I’m re-evaluating the way I handle my blogroll. I’m no longer going to provide descriptions for blogs since they often end up sounding very generic – yet writing them takes a huge amount of time – and they don’t typically remain relevant. Druid blogs will still be categorized by spec, and I will continue to remove those who haven’t updated in a month or more, but I need to look at areas where I can save time and this is definitely one of them.

New Tree Shirts and Long-Sleeved Options

The Feast of Winter Veil is coming up which would be a great time to hint-drop about wanting a Tree Shirt or two from a certain blog. *Nudge nudge* In preparation for the holiday season, I’ve added three great new designs:

1

2

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Tree of Life EmblemThe first is the orange symbol that features prominently on the chest of our Tree of Life form. Although I’ve featured it on brown shirts (mostly), you can switch the color of the shirt to whatever suits you best. The nice thing about this design is that it’s vector-based and should print as a crisp, understated option for the discerning tree.

Restoration Wreath (Autumn) by Diego SS. DicaroThe second design is a autumnal variation on Eggo’s earlier Shift Happens Restoration Wreath design. This design was requested by several readers, and Eggo actually sent it in a number of weeks ago. Sorry that it’s taken me so long to get it added!

“Shift Happens” Grid from ValennaFinally, Valenna created a design for the “Shift Happens” contest earlier this year. Since he’s pretty much my best friend, there was no question as to whether I would add it, but I really love it! It features 8 rounded squares with each of the Night Elf forms (including the still-awaited critter form). The design includes black, purple, orange, brown, and light blue and should work well on many different shirt colors.

Also note that many designs have long sleeved options. Colors for men are unfortunately typically limited to black or white, but women have several to choose from. To view all long-sleeved shirts:

[Intravenous Healing Potion] Macro from Vreenash

Some of you may not be familiar with the [Intravenous Healing Potion]. This item was newly added with Wrath and is sold by Angelique Butler in the Dalaran First Aid shop at a starting price of 2g 70s. Essentially, it’s an infinite-use health and mana restore for 3 minutes (usable only outside of combat). This macro deploys the IV and gives instructions to those nearby on how to use it:

According to Vreenash, he’s seen overwhelmingly positive response in battlegrounds, particularly Arathi Basin. Perhaps best of all, this item can be deployed and used by a Feral or Balance Druid while still in form, allowing you to help out with healing during downtime.

Note: These items do not stack. Always use a fresh needle.

Favorite Posts of Late

There have been an incredible number of useful and informative posts in the wake of Wrath. Here are a few of my favorite:

The Bear T7 List: Part I | Part II from ThinkTankKalon releases some great bear-oriented gear lists along with ratings.

Feral Factions from Of Teeth and ClawsKarthis submits an overview of the best Feral-oriented rewards from various factions to help you plan your reputation grinds.

Ghostcrawler says L2Play (with Druids) and “Dude”

There are plenty of druids topping healing meters.

I think where the problem comes from sometimes is that you need healers who are good at working with hots. When someone has a hot on them, you have to be able to guess if that hot will heal the dude and if it can do it fast enough. Inexperienced healers sometimes stomp on hots, wasting the druid (or priest) mana and making sure that the hot-healer appears to have not contributed much.

This has been a long-standing problem for Druid healers. Given the competitive nature of healing, training one’s guildmates to not overwrite your HoTs is pretty difficult. Does anyone have any tips?

Other Blogs to Visit

As I suspected, the release of Wrath has contributed to a whole new crop of great blogs to visit and subscribe to!

ChrillePvP, Feral, Taurens, and machinima. Could there possibly be a more interesting combination for a blog?

A Druid in TimeFrom reader Shopshopshop of Uldum (US) comes this great new blog on playing a casual Restoration Druid!

Druid HealRaaff the Tree shares his thoughts on Druid healing, starting with Talents!

Eighty Percent FurWith a name that sounds strangely reminiscent of a Fergie song, Lushious blogs about all things Feral Druid.

MoonfireReal life couple Gwyn and Cablin of Bronze Dragonflight (EU) play Restoration and Balance Druids respectively. One has to wonder about the “discussions” that occur when spell power gear drops!

One Rogue’s JourneyAccording to Zaltu of Scarlet Crusade (US), “Rogues do it anywhere in between ninety and two-hundred and seventy degrees.” Kind of makes you shift uncomfortably in your chair, doesn’t it?

RawrbitchrawrStompalina of Staghelm (US) shares personal character stories alongside theory development on her Restoration-oriented blog.

Druids of Azeroth Wallpaper from Andrige

Andrige brings us yet another beautiful wallpaper this week, this one featuring Druids of all both Horde and Alliance and of all specs. This is a piece that required weeks and weeks of painstaking effort, and I’d say the end result was well worth the time and dedication. There are presently two versions of the wallpaper: one with an orange background (for ebil Hordies, no doubt) and one with a blue background.

On a related note, I’ve added a Resources page, specifically to archive things like Andrige’s gorgeous wallpapers and to prevent great utilities like Paininabox’s Wrath spreadsheet and Rawr from being lost among the many other posts here.

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIINS!!!

And for those of you who just couldn’t get enough zombie fun this week, Andrige has also released a great video featuring his own undead escapades:

Bear-o-Lantern (now with Boomkin-o-Lantern)

Reader Tone also sends in this screenshot of his bear dressed up as a jack-o-lantern. Who says Ferals can’t wear costumes?

Bears aren’t the only ones dressing as pumpkins; reader Athryn sent in this screenshot of her Boomkin boyfriend Loupana of Moonrunner (US):

The Feral Prince of Dire Bear

Now this is the story all about how My spec got flipped, turned upside down And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there I’ll tell you how I became the feral prince of Dire Bear. In West Plaguelands, born and raised Healing in Tree Form is how I spent most of my days Stacking Lifebloom and dancing real cool And Swiftmending some tanks taking damage like a fool When a couple of rogues who were up to no good Pulled extra mobs on Jahood I got in one little wipe and my group got scared And said "You’re hearthin’, respeccin’, and tanking in bear." I whistled for my mount and when it came near The license plate said feral and had a dice in its ear If anything I could say this mount was fast But I thought naw forget it, I’m hearthin’ to Shattrath I pulled up to Moonglade about seven or eight And I yelled to the trainer, "Yo resto, smell you later" Looked at my talent tree, I was finally there To go to Karazhan and Tank in bear.

Thanks to Gidget of Bloodhoof (US) for sending this in!

Stormcrow in Flight

Reader Mike sent in the above picture after having recently completed the Swift Flight Form quest line. This quest series was my favorite in all of WoW, and I’m quite sad to hear that many new Druids will miss out on it since SFF will soon become trainable at level 71. I encourage everyone to do it anyway, because it really is a joy.

Restoration Spreadsheet for Wrath Talents and Equipment

Paininabox of Runetotem (US) has released an updated, beta version of Hydraar’s original Restoration spreadsheet that includes our new talent trees and items from Wrath of the Lich King. This is something several readers have asked me about, but keep in mind that the sheet is still considered beta. Eventual features Pain would like to add include buffs, consumables, and Glyphs. If you’d like to contact Paininabox to provide suggestions, comments, or corrections, your can e-mail him at .

L2PvP: Fakecasting from Yet Another Warlock NerfHorns teaches you how to cast a less desirable spell in the hopes of causing an opponent to waste a crucial interrupt ability. Once their interrupt is on cooldown, you’re free to cast what you will. This will be a valuable skill with PvP-implications of the Lifebloom nerf.

Thanks, Alathi! However you forgot the “/say This resurrection brought to you by Resto4Life.com” that comes standard with ALL of my resurrections!

Bloggy Bloggers and the Bloggers who Blog Them

It’s harvest time here in the U.S., and accordingly I have a crop of new blogs to share with you:

Feral at HeartThe author of FaH plays two Druids, one Feral and the other Restoration. Contains lots of commentary on talent specs.

Flash of MoonfireDedicated to her two main characters, the first a Balance-specced Druid (a Moonfire caster) and the other a Holy-specced Paladin (a Flash of Light caster), Flash of Moonfire celebrates the versatility of two of the most “hybrid” of classes.

Ride the Pain TrainGroloth plays a predominantly PvP-oriented Druid with experience in Balance and Restoration. Definitely seems to take a page from Megan’s l33t coloring book of post images.

Tree Bark JacketKeeva of Caelestrasz (US) brings us a fantastic new blog about her play as a Restoration Druid. Amazing pictures, humorous writing, and a diverse set of topics make this blog a must-see/must-subscribe!

Trigger WickedMooyagi of Mug’thol (US) blogs about WoW “rumors, news, and adventures with friends” from the perspective of a Feral Druid.

Talent Chic: 31 Flavors … of the Month

Curious what everyone else is doing so you can be rebellious and spec for Dire Aquatic Form? Check out Talent Chic, a site that aggregates the most popular talent specs by class by mining Armory data. Uses a great system whereby the most popular builds are given a numerical identifier and variations on that build are expressed as a +/- change to that build! Some interesting facts about Druids:

The 11 most popular builds for Druids are primarily Restoration, all of which include 53 or more points in the tree and Wild Growth. Apparently, the AoE healers have made quite an impression on us!

The 10 most popular builds for Druids include 3/3 Living Spirit. This may have something to do with the increased mana cost for many of our spells, including Lifebloom.

The top 2 builds comprise by and large comprise the most popular choices for Druids and include a 5/0/56 build and an 8/0/53 build. The primary difference? The latter swaps Replenish for Moonglow.